Self employment doesn't feel like work, more people should do it

As I type this email I'm sitting at a cafe on Sydney's George Street, yesterday I spent the afternoon at a cafe in King's Cross. Monday and Tuesday it was Bondi Beach.

You may be wondering, but don't you have an office to go to? Don't you need to go to work? The answer is no as I am self employed. I work for myself so I can choose where I work and the hours I work.

So there may be a question in your mind, what prompted you to become self employed? Was it so hard to find a job that you had to work for yourself? The answer, and it's not a simple one, is that I was in the full time workforce until November and that employment relationship ended.

Now, anyone who knows anything about me knows that I've been talking about starting my own business since I was 18, so 12 years now but it was never the right time and getting that elusive first client always proves difficult.

Anyway, after that employment relationship ended I started to get more determined about starting my own business, but again, I didn't really know how to go about it. It is one of those decisions that can't be taken lightly and there is so much to consider.

For starters, starting your own business is a huge risk and a huge unknown.

I didn't leave the full time workforce after that job in November though. I actually worked casually for a couple of months before getting another full time job. It was that full time job that gave me the skills necessary to start my own business.

You see, how it really came about was that there was an Immigration Policy Change in Australia for NZ citizens so I decided to join an online platform to get some extra money because I was going to be under the required threshold to qualify. Little did I know that within a couple of weeks I'd be bringing in more money from the online platform than my day job, and that it would end up being a full time job on top of my day job.

I planned an exit strategy from the workforce but that isn't a decision to be taken lightly. When you work for someone else you have the security of holiday and sick pay. When you work for yourself you're it, you're in control of everything. But that also means if you get sick or want to take a holiday you can't because nobody else can do what you do.

Most people are afraid of self employment because of the responsibility involved. In reality you could work for 8 hours a day for someone else, or you could work 12 hours a day for yourself and make significantly more money and have the freedom.

Employers have a mindset that you must work 9-5 in an office, but as The Drum and other media organisations report, technology is suggesting that the 9-5 workforce is on the way out, and that people will have multiple little jobs. These could be casual jobs, or they could be people working for themselves with the plan to grow their business substantially.

9-5 is rigid and technology has meant that jobs which previously would have taken 40 hours in a week no longer do, they can be done in five hours. Before you get scared, technology is also creating jobs so it balances out.

There actually comes a moment in any self employed person's life when they decide they can no longer work for other people. For me, it was that moment in November when my employment ended and without exaggeration, it nearly left me homeless (had it not been for good friends and family money I would have been). It was that moment that it became more of a risk to work for someone else, and most entrepreneurs will tell you the same thing. Just look at Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey or others like Donald Trump who have lost all their money and had to start from scratch all over again.

Self employment gives you a freedom that the paid workforce never will. You are free to take on any role. As a self employed person you're responsible for doing the job, in my case writing, copywriting, marketing and you're also responsible for managing client relationships. When you work for someone else you are pigeonholed into a particular category and you are limited in what you can earn.

Self employment, doesn't even feel like work. It's week one and already I strongly recommend it. With technology constantly evolving I can't see the 9-5 workforce being around for much longer, and I think we need to get out of this mindset that you must work 9-5 in an office to be productive at a job. If we stepped away from this and people took more responsibility for their careers we might see unemployment drop because people would be gaining skills they could transfer to other employment. As it happened my 12 years of working awful jobs gave me all the tools to set up my business.

Everyone is different and not everyone works well from 9-5. Personally my work day starts at 12pm and ends at 1-2am the next day. It's hard work but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

It's not for the faint hearted though. Back to work now but I really wanted to share just how awesome self employment is compared to working for someone else.